The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK EIGHT 45 therefore, in the cultivation of the land was present then much more intensely when neither soil nor weather presented any obstacle. For there was no painful effort but only pleasure and enthusiasm when the gifts of God's creation came forth in a joyful and abundant harvest with the help of man's effort. Thus greater praise was given to the Creator Himself, who had imparted to the soul of man placed in a living body the art and ability to carry out his work in accordance with what he freely wished and not in accordance with what bodily needs might force upon him against his will.
16. What more impressive and wonderful spectacle than this? Where is human reason better able to speak, as it were, to nature than when man sows the seed, plants a tree, transplants a bush, grafts a mallet-shoot,*' and thus asks, as it were, each root and seed what it can or cannot do, why it can or cannot do it, what is the extent of the intrinsic and invisible power of numbers*® within it, and what can be attributed to the extrinsic factors applied by human effort? And how can man better understand, than he does in reflecting on these wonders, that Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who gives the growth?+? For even that part of the work of production which comes from outside comes from a man whom God has also created and whom He invisibly rules and governs.
CHAPTER 9
How man in Paradise willingly and joyfully cultivated the soul.
17. Now, at this point the mind lifts up its gaze to consider the whole world like a great tree of creation. In it is found a double activity of Providence, the natural and the voluntary. The natural working of Providence can be seen in God's hidden governance of the world, by which He gives growth to trees and plants; the voluntary working of His providence can be observed in the deeds of angels and men. In the natural working of Providence the heavenly bodies above and earthly bodies be-